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Ghost Tears, Part 1
A man wakes up near a dam waterfall carrying a briefcase. He gets up and starts walking when the source of the stream explodes. Later Kusanagi is seen diving in a virtual space with an unknown man, kissing him. She is woken up by Batou through her virtual comm. He asks her if she was using virtual reality and she frustratingly answers that she is on vacation. Offering his condolences, Batou informs her of a terrorist bombing in Nishinouchi, confirming the deaths of multiple high-profile victims as well as the further bombing of the dam. He tells the Major that Section 9 has put them on the case to investigate. The Major accepts the job and gets up from her bed, putting her clothes on. Her boyfriend wakes up next to her and greets her, reminding her not to forget what they discussed. Batou picks up on this conversation and laughs, citing three months in her relationship to be a new record for the Major before she Ghost-hacks him into punching himself. Later, Togusa checks on the body of Detective Naoharu Mizuki, his senior in the police department. Inside his wallet he finds a holographic card for a prosthetic agency called "Mermaid's Legs", with "Akira Hose" written on the back. His colleagues also discover a briefcase nearby that contains prosthetic limbs. The Major's team is then shown holding a cyber-meeting, attempting to track down the perpetrators of the terrorist bombing. When Ishikawa tracks down the location of the leader, Kusanagi makes her way there and attacks him. She hacks through his line and orders all of his allies to back down. Batou and a Logicoma take each member in without a shootout, and the Major orders them to be given to Public Security. However, she becomes infected with a virus from the man she took down. Temporarily disabled, she sits there as the man begins to approach her. Saito tries to snipe him but is hacked by the Major, who only allows him to take a non-lethal shot. The Major grapples herself out of the paralysis but fails to defeat him, leaving Batou to finish the job. The next day, a Qhardi woman named Dr. Zhinzhee Bekka Arr Thied, working for a water machinery company appears in Togusa's office. She claims that the explosion in the dam was a valve malfunction. Back in Section 9 Ishikawa manages to profile the attackers as a Qhardi weapons smuggling group with their goal being to send weapons back to their comrades, however the Major claims that their agenda is a product of the false memories they were infected with. Aramaki enters the room and discusses the matter further, suspecting this to be the work of the Fire-Starter hacker. He reveals to the team that he discovered a clue in the form of the tattoos that each of the terrorists were branded with. It is the symbol for Scylla, a leader of the Qhardi Separatist Army. Ishikawa asks if he is Fire-Starter, but the Major says that he was already killed in the Qhardistan War. Aramaki allows limited access into Section 9's database to find more informatiin. Togusa then shows up to Aramaki's office and fills him on the details of Detective Mizuki's death. Togusa theorizes that he may have been killed after finding proof that Dr. Thied's organization was dealing in weapons smuggling. Aramaki is amused by Togusa's "imagination" and gives him authority to investigate the connections further. He is glad to be given permission and goes to question the owner of the Mermaid Legs card, Akira Hose (who is actually the Major's boyfriend). After Togusa asks about the pair of legs found in the briefcase, Hose tells him he will check on the model and secretly meets with Colonel Hozumi of Army Intelligence. Meanwhile, the Major's team discovers a new clue in the terrorists' hideout.